‘Mario Kart’ is 30 years old, if you can believe that

engadget.com:

Released a few years after Super Nintendo, Super Mario Kart was an odd proposition: Nintendo mascot Mario, his brother, friends and enemies get in go-carts, racing around flat, pseudo-3D tracks based on some very familiar Mario worlds.

The weapons included turtle shells, fire flowers and, er, bananas. They’re all linchpins of the Mario Kart experience now, but at the time, compared to the more buttoned-up racing games of the 1990s, it all seemed so silly. And fun. Super Mario Kart was a critical and commercial hit, with multiplayer races and battles further bolstered by the N64 version, which had four controller ports from the outset.

Nintendo has continued to evolve the series across three decades and 14 games, offering different vehicles, copilots, handheld versions and just… so… many... tracks. The company’s official celebration of this milestone (pun intended) appears to be the addition of eight new tracks to the latest iteration of the game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but the racer’s influence goes beyond the console.

It’s spawned remote-controlled cars, theme park rides, mobile spin-offs, and an army of pretenders trying (and failing) to replicate the magic of the Mushroom Kingdom racer. Here, on the eve of the franchise's 30th birthday, a few of Engadget’s most avid Nintendo gamers reminisce about their favorite Mario Kart moments.

I wish I was writing about the Super Nintendo Land Mario Kart ride, but COVID-19 derailed my plans to visit (in the name of journalism, of course). So I’ll talk about my favorite version of Mario Kart: the arcade version. Settle behind a cute cartoon steering wheel, adjust the seat because it was nearly always set up for a child, and play Mario Kart as if it’s a hyper-real driving experience.

Mari